So gather up a whole lot of ornaments, a wire hanger and your hot glue gun and get ready for some Holiday fun!

Please click here to visit Pearls, Handcuffs and Happy Hour and see the instructions that we followed!

Mission: To make a darling holiday décor piece and use everything I already had on-hand!

Details:

I was on a mission to find everything I needed for this project in my holiday supply storage – and boy did I find it! I have more ornaments than necessary in my basement storage! Then it was to my closet to find a wire hanger – mind you, I don’t have many of these on-hand as I really hate using them for their purpose of hanging clothes.

Once I got everything out of storage, I set up shop in my kitchen. I placed all of the ornaments in bowls and got my glue gun fired up. I love any project in which I get to use my glue gun!!

I started by unwrapping the wire hanger and put my best effort into shaping it into a circle. This was the hardest part of the project for me and I still don’t think it is circular when looking at the finished product. Oh well!

I then glued each of the ornament tops on to tightly secure them and started the process of stringing them onto the wire. This was an interesting process, but fun to see it begin to take shape.

When I was all done with the ornaments, I hooked the two ends of the hanger together and added some ribbon to finish it off. It is now adorning our home for the holidays!

Tips & Tricks Learned:

Pinch the end of the wire hanger so that you have a finished edge so your ornaments do not fall off as you are stringing them on.

When you are finished, you can then pinch the other end and hook them together. I did this and then put my finishing ribbon over that area so that it was hidden.

Pros:

Beautiful end product and very reasonable to pull-off. Looks like an expensive piece when finished!

Cons:

Hard to do this one on your own, so if you think you may have issues, have a friend handy! And, my wreath got pretty fat due to the larger ornaments I used and I wasn’t able to fit it on our front door as it was too big to fit between the door and our storm door.

Conclusion:

I’m really happy with the wreath and love having it up for the holidays. A fun holiday project!

Tips & Tricks Learned:

No matter how much you think that you have enough ornaments, you don’t, buy more. 62 ornaments was not even enough to totally fill up one wire hanger. My completed wreath is about 15″ wide.

No matter how much you think those tops are secured onto the ornaments, pull them off and re-glue them back on! This will save you a lot of frustration and several F-bombs.

Having said that, if you manage to break the little loop off in the process (like I did several times) you can pull a slick MacGyver move like I did and glue an ornament hook inside the ball (photo at right).

In perfect OCD fashion, I laid out all of the ornaments, organized by size and then lined them up so that they would be evenly strung by size on the wire. Yep, I admitted that.

I used my pliers to make a little loop on each end of the hanger and then strung the two ends together with a piece of string. Tah Dah!

Pros:

A relatively easy project with terrific results! I love this thing!

Cons:

3rd degree glue gun burn on the fingertips. Happens every time.

Conclusion:

This was an easy project and I really love the end result! I think that I’ll give it another shot on a larger scale!

I can’t wait to hit up JoAnn at the end of the season and score some more ornaments at a steal!

Cons:

Conclusion:

Mission: Have always wanted to create this project and was so excited to try it out!

Details:

While I was out browsing IKEA, I happened upon their Christmas decoration section and found perfect ornaments for the project. The total cost came out to be $15, with no extra money spent for the wire and glue, which I already had.

Tips & Tricks Learned:

Choose a wire hanger with thick, sturdy wire. I didn’t think about this at the beginning and the wire I used probably won’t keep its circular shape through the holidays. Also, make sure you pick ornaments that have a few different sizes, as the smaller ones can fill in a few open spaces.

Glue those ornament hooks. You may think that it is a step that you can neglect, but really you shouldn’t. Those suckers pop off!

Try not to get (too) frustrated. Having an extra pair of hands nearby is helpful as it is awkward holding on to it and finishing the ends.

Turn the ends of the wire with pliers to create two hooks that you can use to finish the wreath (see picture).

Pros:

Turned out great! Such a simple, unique decoration to make and is a perfect way to add some BLING to the holiday decor.

If you have some ornaments on hand that you don’t use any more, this would be a perfect way to use them.

Cons:

It was frustrating at times, just because it is awkward holding on to all of those balls without dropping it!!

If you are a perfectionist, it can add time and frustration to the project if you don’t like the way it looks and you want to rearrange.

Conclusion:

This wreath is pretty awesome, and much unlike the normal wreaths that you usually see during the holidays. I like how mine turned out, though I could think of a few things that I would do next time I make it, such as using stronger wire. Mine will be an oblong wreath by the end of December!

When you make this (which you should and will make!) wait until after the holidays are over and get some ornaments on sale and plan to make next year! Happy holidays y’all!